Martin Leon helps you discover the many facets of the integrated and feature-rich web development tools built right into the Safari browser and learn some basic web development and troubleshooting techniques.

I have been a Mac enthusiast for a long time, but having spent the last 13 years as a Domino developer, my primary platform for doing development has been Windows/PC by necessity.

My recent career change from Domino Developer to SDET (Software Developer in Test) in a Java/Linux-based environment has afforded me the benefit of being able to become a full-time Mac user.

I could go on and on about how much more enjoyable and productive daily tasks are on a platform that combines elegance, simplicity, and power, but I would be dishonest if I didn't tell you that there have been "growing pains."

I have these pains actually because I have become so accustomed to the DOS/Windows operating systems, which I have been using for longer than I care to admit. (I started my career in computer technology as a PC technician who upgraded PC XTs from having hard drives that were 10MB to 20MB hard drives[md]yes, that's MEGA bytes, and that was a big upgrade in 1987!)

However, as I continue becoming more familiar with the OS X platform, I'm pleasantly surprised at how much Apple has made available out-of-the-box.

One of those surprises is the Safari Developer tool. Unlike Firebug, which is a third-party Firefox add-on, and the IE Developer Toolbar, also an add-on, the Safari Developer tools are fully integrated as part of Safari. I only recently discovered it as I made a conscious decision to try and become more familiar with Safari both as a user and as a developer. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised to discover this hidden gem.

Getting Started

By default, Safari does not show you the Developer tools. In order to enable it, you must open the Safari Preferences and from the "Advanced" tab enable the "Show Develop menu in menu bar" option (see Figure
1).